.: Cath’s Blog:.

Today was my last day in Kununurra and I spent my time sorting little things out and relaxing with friends.

Thank you to everyone who has made my stay so much fun….especially….

Yvon - Good Luck with your search for work in the UK…you will get something that is right for you and you will be extremely successful, I am sure of it.

Shima - Who I am travelling to Darwin with

Kelly’s Knob - A monstrosity of a hill that nearly killed me!

Ken (One of the Irish Lads) - Thanks for the laughs at work…you really are Roy Keane!

Kelly - Top Lass from Bonnie Scotland

Megumi - You are a really sweet person, thanks for all the help at work

Ulrika - Keep smiling and please learn the words to Angel Eyes…you are Swedish for gods sake…you should know it already!

Natalie - I had lots of laughs with you, thanks for all the advice and chats, make sure you keep in touch and please seek professional help for that snoring!

It’s been lots of fun

I wolk up early this morning again and got up to watch the updates on the TV on the London bombing…it is such a discrace!

I sat chatting with some friends at the tables outside and asked if anyone fancied going out for a run somewhere. After much debates over where to go we decided to go to Ivanhoe Crossing and Barra Barra. There was Yvon, Ulrika, Fabien, Marion and myself. Our first stop was Ivanhoe Crossing, which was a lovely little area…somewhere which would have been nice for a picnic. We rolled our pants up and started walking across the crossing (apparently inhabited by Salt Water Crocodiles), poor Marion landed on her bum on the slippery floor and we had lots of fun seeing how far we could wade across.

We stopped next at Barra Barra where there was apparently a café which served the best chocolate covered fruit (Natalie remembers that Banana well!). We stopped for a little while here, ate our goodies and sat chatting about how useful our Royal Families are and how life would be oh so much nice without them.

Our next stop was the Zebra Rock Gallery which was a small shop which had a workshop which made jewelry etc out of Zebra Rock (which is a very unusual Zebra patterned rock). We also went down to the waterfront and fed some very hungry catfish.

When we got back to the backpackers I spent most of the evening relaxing outside and chatting with friends. I am really going to miss some of the people that I have met at this backpackers, especially Natalie, Yvon, Ulrika, Marion & the Irish Boys.

1. WHAT IS YOUR FULL NAME: Catherine Majella Ellis

2. WHAT COLOUR PANTS ARE YOU WEARING:  Pink ones with little pink dogs (Victoria Secret)

3. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Digital Dog – Cloths Off

4. ARE YOUR LEGS CROSSED? No

5. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Cheese and Branston Pickle Sandwich

6. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOUR WOULD YOU BE?? Blue

7. HOW IS THE WEATHER RIGHT NOW? Really really hot!!

8. LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?? My Mum and Dad…Dad was stressing out as he could not find the receipt for the washing machine…it’s apparently on the blink!

9. FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX? Lips

10. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT YOU THIS? Yes, he is very talented and cute (James Blair)

11. HOW ARE YOU TODAY? I am very relaxed, sat outside listening to music drinking a nice cup of tea

12. FAVOURITE DRINK? Iron Bru

13. FAVOURITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK? Smirnoff Ice

14. FAVOURITE SPORTS? Scuba Diving

15. HAIR COLOUR? Brown

16. EYE COLOUR? Green/Grey

17. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Nope

18. SIBLINGS?  Big Brother (Ged) & Little Sister (Steph)

20. FAVOURITE FOOD? Anything my Mum or Dad make…they are great cooks

21. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Connie & Carla (last night)

22. FAVOURITE DAY OF THE YEAR? Christmas Day

23. SATURDAY OR SUNDAY?? Sunday

24. ARE YOU TOO SHY TO ASK SOMEONE OUT? No

25. DO YOU LIKE MARMITE? No, it’s like licking a cats arse (apparently)

26. SUMMER OR WINTER? Winter…I love snow!

27. HUGS OR KISSES? Kisses

28. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA? Vanilla

29. LIVING ARRANGEMENTS? Backpackers in Kununurra in WA…sharing a room with an Irish girl called Natalie…the other beds are randomly filled every night with snorers!

30. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson (a gift from my friends Marion McKean & Wendy Dando - it’s fab)

31. DID YOU WAKE UP BEFORE YOUR ALARM WENT OFF?  Yes, we forgot to close the curtains again…it was very bright 

32. FAVOURITE SMELLS? Donna Karen DKNY and Glasgow

33. WHAT INSPIRES YOU? Music

34. BUTTERED, PLAIN, OR SALTED POPCORN? I like Plain

35. FAVOURITE CRISPS? Pickled Onion Monster Munch

36. FAVOURITE CAR? Audi TT

37. FAVOURITE FLOWER? Lily

38. How MANY KEYS ON YOUR KEY RING? 5 (Car, PO BOX, Locker, Room & Gate)

39. CAN YOU JUGGLE? No

40. FAVOURITE DAY OF THE WEEK? Friday

41. RED OR WHITE WINE? White…or Zinfandel

42. WHAT DID YOU DO FOR YOUR LAST BIRTHDAY? I can’t remember

43. DO YOU OWN A DONOR CARD? No…I should get one though

44. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU GET UP IN THE MORNING? Where am I?

45. WHAT ARE YOU DOING ONCE THIS IS FINISHED? I am going for a drive with my friends Marion, Yvon, Ulrika & Fabien to Ivanhoe Crossing

I had been half expecting to sleep I this morning…instead I wolk up quite early. For the first time ‘The Bag Lady’ was quiet, so I wasn’t woken up by her, and thank goodness…she was up at 4:30am. This time I was stirred by another lady who was staying in our room. I have actually met her three times since staying in Kununurra, but have regrettably never asked her her name. She was really nice to talk to the three times she has stayed in our room, so I sat chatting to her for a little while about my plans since leaving my job.

In the afternoon a few of us (Ulrika, Marion, Dan & Brendon) decided to go up to Kelly’s Knob (a monstrosity of a hill which houses the telephone and television transmitters) to see the sunset. Usually Phil (the owner of the backpackers) drives people down to Kelly’s Knob at 4:30pm, ready to see the sunset, but Ulrika and the others wanted to walk there and back. I knew that the hill was big but I honestly didn’t expect it to be difficult to walk. When we got to the base of Kelly’s Knob there were a load of Aborigines sat down and they shouted to us that the road was the other way…the guy’s shouted back “We know…we want to go this way”…this started about 10 minutes of yelling from the Abos, saying things like “There’s snakes up there at the top”…I was crapping my pants to say the least!

The start of this hike was about a 70 degree slope with a water pipe as a rail and signs all showing ‘No Walking’. As I walked up this starting point I was keeping my eyes open for snakes, spiders and any other creature which could cause me harm. When I got to the top of this section, I honestly felt like we were at the top and I said “Is this it?”…the reply was “We’re halfway”…wonderful, I was knackered already!

The last part of the walk was basically walking around fences which were marked ‘No Entry, No Walking, Danger” etc…I was worried, but the boys had been here many times before. At the top, I was sweating, out of breath and also thirsty. We all sat and looked out over the Ord Valley and Hidden Valley…it was really pretty. Don’t ask why but one the lads stripped off to his undies and stood on one of the transmitters with his arms stretched out…I think it was a dare.

By the time we got to the bottom of Kelly’s Knob it was dark. When I got back to the backpackers I found we had two new room mates…one small Japanese/Chinese lady (not sure which) who was as quiet as a mouse and was in bed by 8pm and a Liverpudlian girl who seemed really nice. A few of us went to watch Connie & Carla, which was quite entertaining.

After the movie I went back to the room to crash out. Everyone was I bed, so I put on my torch to try and sort my things out. As soon as I settled I was lying I bed just thinking about things and I started hearing this god awful snoring. I knew it wasn’t Natalie (well, I hoped it wasn’t her) and the noise was coming from my right, not above me, so I knew it was this little Asian lady. I kind of giggled because it was surprising to hear such a racket come from this little lady. Meanwhile I was hearing the Liverpudlian girl above me move around quite a lot, like she was awake and just restless, so I called out quietly “Are you awake?”…but I heard nothing back. Again the snoring continued and all of a sudden I heard someone whisper “Cath”. I looked over at Natalie, as I didn’t recall telling this Liverpudlian girl my name, but Natalie was asleep. This head appeared from the bunk above and the girl said “Cath, will you go and nudge that woman and tell her she is snoring really loud”. I got up and tried tapping her feet, but she didn’t stop…I was a little uncomfortable waking up the woman. The Liverpudlian girl climbed down and in a really loud voice said to the woman “”Excuse me…you know you’re snoring really loud!”…Well, I was in fits of laughter, especially when the woman replied “Am I?”…I don’t think the woman went back to sleep…she was probably mortified!!

I had a very lazy day today and didn’t really do all that much.

Ulrika, Yvonne and some other friends watched Muriel’s Wedding (which was fab) and then we put on the Aviator. Half way through everything went black…in the entire town. Of course, we all sat giggling at the blackout and then torches started to appear all over the hostel. I walked with Eldon down to my room to get my torch and came back and we sat for about an hour in the dark waiting for lights…none appeared.

Everyone came back from the pub with funny stories how people had raided the bar and stole all the drinks in the fridges and the supervisors in the bar were asking “Who took the drinks?”…like anyone would tell!

The lights finally came back on and we watched the rest of the Aviator…I have to say, that is one strange movie.

I felt totally knackered today when I got up. Yoko (I am happy to report) didn’t waken Natalie and when Adrienne came to meet me she told me the great news that London had won the bid for the 2012 Olympics. I was driving to work this morning as I had asked to leave early to go to the Bank and collect my bank cards…so Adrienne and Magumi came in my car. Don’t ask why but one of the lads in the bus did a moony all the way to work out of the back window. It really wasn’t funny at all…in fact…a little silly at 5:30am.

We all knew that we would be continuing to pack the Coles boxes and as soon as we got in we cracked on with the boxes. Peter (my new worst nightmare) came over and said that he wanted me to start carrying my own boxes over to the scales and weigh them, so I would know if I was over or under weight…I was not too thrilled by this request.

The boxes were 19 Kilos and I was getting the majority of the boxes spot on and there was no changes needed. I felt that having to do this lifting now, I was getting (very quickly) exhausted…even Adrienne was complaining her back was hurting her and it was only 9am.

Today was the first time I had seen Peter sweat (so that made me happy) and he was under pressure to make sure we got the palates ready for lunch time. Ken was hung over…I don’t know why the Irish lads decided to go out on the beers, but they were all in a bit of a state.

I continued to pack the boxes and by body just kept getting sorer. By lunch time I had well and truly had enough and I am sure this will not surprise some of you, but I went to the boss, told him I wasn’t feeling well (from the heat as it was really hot) and asked to leave for the day. I also told him I didn’t think this was suitable work for me and told him I would not be back. He was very nice about it and told me not to worry…don’t worry, I wont…It doesn’t surprise me that no Australian’s want to do this work…it’s like slave labor!

I got home at about 12:30pm and was greeted by my friend Ulrika and a girl from Germany (I forgot her name). I told them what happened and that I was feeling pretty pissed off with myself for giving up, but they made me feel better by saying lots of people can’t do it…it’s too hard. I went for a shower and went to Grunt to inform Phil I had resigned and came back to the backpackers.

Later on in the evening I went over to the TV area and was watching the news for a little while. I saw a small clip that there had been an explosion in London at a train station and without thinking about it twice I thought “Oh, it’ll be the IRA” and I walked away.

I sat at dinner chatting with some friends and Natalie came over and said while she was at the Gym she had received lots of missed calls on her phone and it was her Sister. She called her back and her sister had asked he if she had heard about what happened to London and she replied “Yeah I know, isn’t it great…London got the Olympics”, her sister then told her that London had been bombed in several places in Central London by terrorists.

I was shocked to hear this news and after chatting with my family on the phone I sat and watched CNN for a few hours covering news about the bombings. On the same day as the G8 summit at Gleneagles, I am not surprised that something happened…it’s something everyone has dreaded happening for a long time! These people were just going about their business, going to work…this world is a really scary place!

This morning I was well and truly exhausted…my head was feeling much better from the sun, but my back and feet were aching.

The Japanese girl (Yoko) was up at 4:30am, along with me and a lady called Joan who was also staying in our dorm. I told Yoko last night that Natalie was not up early as she was working at 8am. Well, when she got up she started rummaging through her bags (she’s like a bag lady, with a million plastic bags). I got up and said “Shhhhhhhhhhh, Nat is not up now…let her sleep”…and Yoko proceeded to take her millions of bags out to the corridor to get her things together. I went for a shower and as I was getting out of the shower I saw Natalie walking down to the TV area with her sleeping bag. I asked her why she was up and she told me Yoko had put on the light…I could not believe it!

I went back to the room and asked Yoko why she put on the light and she told me she put it on after Natalie had got up…there are some really inconsiderate people staying in dorms. Just to also let you know…Yoko went to bed in the clothes she arrived in at the backpackers and wore the same ones for work…I know, as she was on the same bus as me to work.

Work was pretty straight foreword this morning. We were cracking on, packing the pumpkins again. I was feeling pretty good until 2:00pm, when the boss came to us and told us we would be packing a different type of pumpkin which would slow us down quite considerably as it was a different type of pumpkin. We were told the pumpkins that were being packed were for Coles and needed to be spotless (so each pumpkin had to be washed) and had to be packed in 19 Kilo boxes.

It took us about an hour to get the boxes perfect…we were packing them and Ken was weighing and stacking the boxes on pallets…it was really a bad time for us to start this project, as we were quite near the end of the working day and we were really tired.

We were picked up at about 5pm and by the time I got back to the backpackers I was so exhausted I went straight to bed without eating…not very good!

A teacher had twenty-five students in her class aged six to seven.
 
She presented each child the first half of a well known proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb. 
 
Their insight (given their age), may surprise you!

1. Don’t change horses……….until they stop running.
2. Strike while the……….bug is close.
3. It’s always darkest before……….Daylight Saving Time.
4. Never underestimate the power of ……….termites.
5. You can lead a horse to water but……….how?
6. Don’t bite the hand that……….looks dirty.
7. No news is………..impossible.
8. A miss is as good as a……….Mr.
9. You can’t teach an old dog new……….math.
10. If you lie down with dogs, you’ll……….stink in the morning.
11. Love all, trust……….me.
12. The pen is mightier than the……….pig.
13. An idle mind is……….the best way to relax.
14. Where there’s smoke there’s……….pollution.
15. Happy the bride who……….gets all the presents.
16. A penny saved is……….not much.
17. Two’s company, three’s……….the Musketeers.
18. Don’t put off till tomorrow what……….you put on to go to bed.
19. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you but cry and……….you have to blow your nose.
20. There are none so blind as……….Stevie Wonder.
21. Children should be seen and not……….spanked or grounded.
22. If at first you don’t succeed……….get new batteries.
23. You get out of something only what you……….see in the picture on the box.
24. When the blind lead the blind……….get out of the way.

And the WINNER!

25. Better late than……….pregnant.

Today work was quite difficult. Everything was going well in the morning. We are getting really fast packing now and basically we had no more pumpkins to pack by Lunch time. My boss asked us if we minded going out to the paddock (I feel like I am working on the set of McLeod’s Daughters) and do some chipping (weeding) for a couple of hours. I personally preferred to just go home and call it a day but I wasn’t in the position to choose what I wanted to do. I had no sun block and it was about 32 degrees (eeek!) so, after Adrienne had told Kane (my boss) she was allergic to pollen (which the lucky thing was) she game me her sun block and she went off to work in the Nursery.

We were driven out to what I can only describe as ‘Hell on Earth’. You know when it’s the summer and you are on the motorway and you look out in the distance and you see a haze over the road from the heat? Well, it was everywhere…All over the paddocks. We were dropped off at rows of some sort of vegetable and I was to walk (possible a mile each way) along the row and look for weeds. You want to know the worst thing though? There were none!! So, I was going totally insane. It took me about 45 minutes to do two rows and when I got back to our bags and water I sat down again, put on more sun block and finished off my water. I didn’t think much about this until I had done another row and this time I was quite close to the sorting shed…I just thought that I would not make it along the row again back to the bags and ‘no water’.

I flagged down Peter and told him I felt like I was getting sunburn and that I wasn’t feeling all that well in the heat, so I asked him if I could go back to the sorting shed to make boxes…he said yes. I started walking towards the shed when Kane came over and I said the same thing to him too…he said to head on back inside. I walked for a while over the bumpy soil from the tractor and came to a moat. I totally didn’t realize that there was a moat of water that surrounded the paddock…I just though “crap”! Kane’s mum came over and said just to walk through it!!

I made up loads of boxes while the others were out in the paddock. I told Peter the others didn’t have enough water, so he went out to see them. They didn’t finish until 4:30pm…which shocked me they had lasted so long outside…Mygumi was really exhausted…I felt quite bad for her.

When I got back in from work I found that Hannah had left…I felt quite bad as I didn’t have time to say goodbye.

We did get a new room mate though…but she is not very friendly, so I will call her a room mate moody. Her name is Yoko (Yes she is Japanese and no, she was not married to John Lennon).

It’s Independence Day today and to the majority of us this means nothing, but I actually really loved this public holiday when I was living in the States.

All I am going to say is that I would pay to see my friend Amy Potter (Fun Ship Freddy) conducting America the Beautiful again on Lido Deck on the Destiny…the girl was hysterically funny…I did have it on tape but I have lost my copy. Imagine, a wild Aussie from Adelaide dressed as a funnel conducting all of the Dining Room staff (none of which were American) with her arms too and fro…it doesn’t sound funny, but to be there it was really really funny. Kasey would agree…she was there too, laughing with me…OK, I will stop now…Amy, you’re the best Fun Ship Freddy EVER!